Supporting ‘needs,’ not ‘wants’

Thursday

Nov 1, 2012 at 3:15 AM

During my run for State Senate in District 4 this year, I have knocked on more than a thousand doors and reached out to many thousands more people in the communities of Dover, Barrington, Somersworth, and Rollinsford. Seeing you all at churches, fairs, festivals, and other community events has been a true joy. In your conversations, you have discussed your concerns with what is happening now: how the economy is affecting your lives; the role you think government is playing, or should be playing; and how we find reasonable solutions to the fears, problems, and concerns we all experience.

As a contrast to what I saw and heard in my past campaigns for State Representative, this year people are telling me that they are extremely concerned with the direction our country is heading and how this environment will adversely affect the future of their children and grandchildren. They do not believe that government is their friend, either at the federal, state, or local level. They want to rein in government; regain control over an entity that has spent its way, not into prosperity or security, but to higher taxes, worse service, and unaccountability. The voters want, more than anything, for government to reduce spending, live within its means, set proper priorities, and not look to increased taxes as a way to solve our problems.

Another thing I have noticed during my door-to-door campaign is the presence, in each of the District 4 communities, of empty and deserted homes; boarded up and tagged. Some are beautiful luxury homes, but many are also simple homes, homes that their owners loved and maintained, but lost because of high taxes and costs they could not meet due to lost jobs and lost income. The neighbors of these deserted and empty homes fear for the loss of their own property values. This is the reality of what many people are experiencing. The focus of voters is not on programs that would restore historic barns and buildings; the focus is on keeping their own homes.

This is the reality that our current legislature leadership dealt with, and in the past two years, where their priorities have been. They have focused on needs, not wants. They balanced the state budget — which was facing an $800 million revenue shortfall — without tax increases. They made sure to continue assisting families in need. They funded the department of Health and Human Services to a higher level than ever before. More than 50 percent of our state budget went to this department to provide help to the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and children. They made sure that our government was back on solid financial and budgetary footing.

The Legislature understood that this was not the time, in this economy, to focus on “wants,” such as the Council for the Arts, LCHIP, preservation of barns, and museums. While these programs have valuable and, for some people are desirable, they fall into the “wants” category. The private or nonprofit sectors can finance many of these programs, and when the economy has improved, can compete for public funds. We cannot, and should not, prioritize them at the expense of such programs as fuel assistance for families who need to keep their children warm and safe during our harsh winters.

The most important thing our House and Senate members can do is not lose focus. They cannot be out-of-touch with the needs of our citizens. Political courage requires difficult choices and clear heads, and an understanding that while spending money on “wants” may be fun and win over a certain set of people, we serve our citizens best when we focus on the day-to-day needs of our state.

In our continuing journey down our road to recovery and prosperity, we know our focus must be on jobs. There are two areas that the Senate should focus on; supporting, encouraging, and smoothing the path for small business owners; and attracting new industries and firms to our state. The Legislature must remove impediments to small businesses, such as redundant, unrealistic, and unreasonable rules and regulations. It must also resist the urge to gouge our small business owners; this Legislature repealed the LLC job-killing income tax for this exact reason. Additionally, we must have expanded conversations with DRED (Department of Resources and Economic Development) as to how we can best attract new businesses into the state, and we must consider ways we can make our state attractive to larger companies with high-paying jobs, such as becoming a Right to Work state.

We have so much to offer with our New Hampshire Advantage: one of the healthiest states in the country, one of the best places to raise a family, no state sales or income tax, beautiful mountains, lakes, and seashores as well as our proximity to several cultural centers. However, without securing our needs, we cannot keep the Advantage. Let’s make sure we take care of our needs; only then can we revisit the “wants.”

Phyllis Woods is a candidate for State Senate in District 4. Woods, a resident of Dover, is a former state representative.